Infinity + One

“Why did you want this one?” She reached out and touched the small grouping of dots on the back of his right hand between his forefinger and his thumb. The touch made him want to grab her hand and hold on, but he pulled away and gripped the wheel instead.

“There are five dots. Five is the only odd, untouchable number . . . as far as we know,” he said, trying to ignore his reaction to her brief caress.

“Odd and untouchable?” she asked, not understanding.

“You know what odd numbers are. Five is odd, but it’s also untouchable—meaning it’s not the sum of any of the proper divisors of any positive integer.”

Bonnie stared at him blankly. “I could ask what an integer is, but I’m not sure that would help me understand what you just said.”

“Integers are the natural numbers—one, two, three, four, etc., as well as the negative of the natural numbers. Negative one, negative two, negative three, negative four, and so on. Zero is an integer too. Integers aren’t fractions or decimals or square roots,” he explained easily.

She nodded as if she understood. “Odd and untouchable. Is that what you are then, Finn?” He could tell she was trying to tease him, but he didn’t feel like laughing.

“In prison I wanted to be untouchable. I’ve always been odd.” His eyes shot to hers and then returned to the road. “But, yeah. I wanted to be different than the rest of the prison population, and I wanted to be left alone. Interestingly enough, eighty-eight is also an untouchable number.” He rubbed the double eights on his chest through his shirt.

“What was it like, the day you got out?” she asked suddenly.

“Of prison?” Finn found he didn’t mind the personal questions as much as he’d minded her silence.

“Yeah.” Bonnie said nodding. Her dark eyes were probing, and her usually smiling mouth curved down at the edges.

“Terrifying.”

“Why?”

“It was almost as scary as the day I went in.”

Bonnie looked stunned and waited for him to continue.

“When you go in, everybody is counting the days ‘til they can get

out . . . if getting out is even an option. The strange thing is, the longer you’re in, the less you want to get out. It starts feeling safe. It starts feeling like the only option.

“One guy, five years older than me, had been in since he was seventeen too. Ten year sentence. He got out a few months before I did.” Finn looked over at Bonnie, making sure she got what he was about to say next. “But he was back before I was released. And he was relieved. Being out here, in the real world, living? It scared him shitless. He didn’t know how to be on his own. He didn’t have any skills. The world had left him behind, and he crawled back in his hole the only way he knew how—he hurt somebody, stole their wallet. Problem solved. And you know what? I felt sorry for the bastard. I understood his thought process. I didn’t like it, but I understood it.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Bonnie was nodding. “Being out here, in the real world, living? It is pretty scary. It makes me wonder what I’m running away from.”

It was Finn’s turn to wait. He didn’t get the similarities between the two at all. Super stardom and prison? Um, no. But she’d used his words exactly.

“But then I think about going back. And I get so sick I just want to find a . . . a . . .”

“A bridge?” Finn finished for her.

“Yeah,” Bonnie whispered, and Finn felt apprehension quiver in his gut. He studiously ignored it and resumed his own story.

“I promised myself I would be different. I promised myself I would not go back. But I won’t lie and say there weren’t times it would have been easier. It’s been almost two years since I got out. I can’t find a full time job. I can’t really blame people. I was in prison for five years. Easier to hire the guy who doesn’t have prison tats and a rap sheet.

“I lived in the basement of the house I grew up in because my mom had rented out the upstairs. She remarried while I was in Norfolk and moved to a nice house in Chelsea with her new husband. She said I could come live with her, but it would have caused problems in the relationship, and I didn’t want that. Plus, living with my mom wasn’t my idea of independence. So, I’ve lived in the basement and used a hot plate and a mini fridge for the last two years, sleeping on a mattress in the corner, lucky to have my own bathroom, lucky not to pay rent.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad,” Bonnie said, and she sounded wistful. The wistful tone made him angry. She had no idea what she was talking about.

“You say that because you have money to burn and a life most people dream about. I have worked every odd job I could. My mom lined some things up for me. Painting, fixing this, fixing that. I’m not half bad at fixing things. It’s a whole lot easier to fix things than it is to fix myself. But it wasn’t working, Bonnie. So when Cavaro, a guy I met in prison, called me and told me he had something for me in Vegas, I decided it was better than what I had going. His brother owns several casinos. I don’t know if there are mob ties. He told me my job will be to watch the tables. To watch the dealers. Follow the numbers. Nothing illegal, nothing shady.” Finn stopped talking and shook his head. He didn’t really know if it would involve anything shady or not, if he were being honest.

“So the numbers are saving you again, huh?” Bonnie said softly, and he remembered his confessions of the morning before.